Findings elicit vow of police overhaul

BALTIMORE -- City law enforcement and political leaders on Wednesday vowed a sweeping overhaul of Baltimore's Police Department after a Justice Department investigation found practices that discriminate against black residents in poorer communities.

Officials warned, however, that overhauling a department entrenched in a culture of unconstitutional policing would be a slow process and could cost millions of dollars.

"Police reform won't happen overnight or by chance," Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department's top civil-rights official, said at a news conference unveiling the findings of the report. "It's going to take time, and it's going to require a focused and sustained effort."

Gupta said there were "long-standing systemic deficiencies" within the Baltimore Police Department and that "sustainable reform" was necessary to keep both officers and the community safe.

The criticism of the agency came in an extensive report the federal government released this week after a 14-month investigation.

The investigation found that a police force rooted in "zero tolerance" enforcement, which started in 1999 but ended a decade ago, has created a deep divide between police and many members of the community it serves. The city's policing strategy, lack of training and inattention to officer accountability has cultivated an agency that allows and encourages officers to stop, arrest or search black residents with little or no legal justification.

In addition to pat-downs, Baltimore officers performed unconstitutional public strip searches, even of people not under arrest, the report said. The investigation found that the Police Department engaged in unnecessary force against youths, people with mental-health problems and people who were restrained and presented no threat.

The direction often came from the top: In one instance, a police supervisor told a subordinate to "make something up" after the officer protested an order to stop and question a group of young black men for no reason.

"[The department] deployed a policing strategy that, by its design, led to differential enforcement in African-American communities," the report stated. "But [department] failed to use adequate policy, training and accountability mechanisms to prevent discrimination, despite long-standing notice of concerns about how it polices African-American communities in the City."

In other words, according to the 163-page Justice Department report: "The relationship between the Baltimore Police Department and many of the communities it serves is broken."

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said that though the findings of the report are "challenging to hear," the investigation creates a "crucial foundation" that will allow the city to change the department.

"It's so very important that we get this right," Rawlings-Blake said. "The report and its follow-up will help to heal the relationship between the police and our communities."

Now that the investigation is complete, city officials will work with the Justice Department to implement court-mandated measures outlined in what is known as a consent decree. The mayor said it could cost the city between $5 million and $10 million annually to make the suggested changes, which include improved training programs and new technology and equipment to modernize the police force.

The court-enforced order will be independently monitored and designed to sustain change regardless of who is the police commissioner or mayor, Justice Department officials said.

City police Commissioner Kevin Davis said he already had fired six officers who had engaged in misconduct uncovered by Justice Department investigators, adding that he would not tolerate discriminatory policing.

"Change is painful, growth is painful, but nothing is as painful as being stuck in a place that we don't belong," Davis said.

"Those who choose to wear this uniform and choose to blatantly disregard someone's rights absolutely should be uncomfortable," he said, "because we are not going to tolerate it."

Baltimore has long struggled with strained relations between residents and police, but the need to ease those tensions became more urgent after the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray. The 25-year-old suffered a fatal spine injury in police custody, triggering demonstrations and riots that brought the city into the national debate over race-based policing and fatal law encounters involving black men.

The same day the governor lifted the state of emergency in Baltimore after unrest over Gray's death, Rawlings-Blake requested the investigation from the Justice Department. Her request put Baltimore on the expanding list of cities -- including Chicago, Ferguson, Mo., and Cleveland -- that have sought federal resources to enact law enforcement changes.

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, whose office prosecuted six officers involved in Gray's arrest, said in a statement Tuesday that "while the vast majority of Baltimore City Police officers are good officers, we also know that there are bad officers and that the Department has routinely failed to oversee, train, or hold bad actors accountable."

Mosby's office dropped charges against three of the six officers charged in the Gray case after a judge acquitted the first three officers who went to trial.

Since Gray's death, city officials have revised 26 policies, Rawlings-Blake said, including the one governing use of force. She said officials also are engaged in "active discussion" about giving residents a role in determining how officers are punished -- a central demand of civil-rights activists.

The city also has retrofitted its transport vans -- officials say Gray was injured while riding unbuckled in a van -- and has begun issuing body cameras to officers.

Wednesday's report focused on agencywide, institutional practices and is separate from an ongoing investigation into Gray's death.

Skepticism among blacks

The Justice Department's report, and the promises of change from city leaders, drew skepticism from black residents who wondered whether anything will change.

"Mere words by officials mean little when it's people on the ground who are living with these material conditions every day," said the Rev. Heber Brown III, a Baptist pastor who was among a small group of community leaders who met privately last year with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. "From the streets to the suites, everybody is skeptical and furious."

"It's like a huge taste of 'too little, too late,'" said Brandon Scott, a member of the Baltimore City Council, who said he ran for office to correct police abuses that have been going on since before he was born.

In Baltimore, a city that is 63 percent black, the Justice Department found that 91 percent of those arrested on discretionary offenses like "failure to obey" or "trespassing" were black. Blacks make up 60 percent of Baltimore's drivers but account for 82 percent of traffic stops.

Of the 410 pedestrians who were stopped at least 10 times in the 5½ years of data reviewed, 95 percent were black.

Calvin Void, 45, said Wednesday that he was once tackled by a police officer who was convinced he had just participated in a drug deal. But when the officer checked his pockets, he found no cash or drugs. Still, Void was arrested.

"He smacked me in the head with his walkie-talkie," Void said, motioning to a patch of discolored skin on his scalp.

Anthony Williams, a 27-year-old raising young children in Sandtown-Winchester, the neighborhood where Gray was arrested, said he was once with his kids and saw officers chasing a teenager for smoking marijuana.

"There was five of them. They jumped on him. I had to tell my kids they were just playing," he said.

The Justice Department in its investigation looked at hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, including internal affairs files and data on stops, searches and arrests.

"Seeing it all collected and pulled together really hit me in the solar plexus," said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who lived in Baltimore for 15 years while teaching law at the University of Maryland. But what most angers her, she said, is that city leaders -- including a series of black mayors -- have ignored the problem for decades.

"African-Americans have not been silent about this," she said. "It's so rampant, it's so widespread, this kind of harassment of the African-American community in a city that's majority African-American, that you really have to ask yourself, 'Why did it take this?'"

Information for this article was contributed by Lynh Bui and Peter Hermann of The Washington Post; by Juliet Linderman, Eric Tucker, Brian Witte and Sarah Brumfield of The Associated Press; and by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/11/2016